Okay, so...Super-Happy-Fun Explanation Time for what I've been doing lately, aside from that whole "being an adult" thing that sucks way more than anyone told me it would. Also, this is a LONG post with a lot of text, in which I'm attempting to explain a rather strange geometric problem...so whereas I would normally advise everyone to just skip through all of that boring nonsense, in this one case I'm going to exhort you to actually read for comprehension. If that's just not your kind of thing, though, your tl;dr is this: brackets are like, hard, and stuff.
I've spoken before about trying to create a sleeping space inside the rig; I'd like to make that happen if at all possible, and since I'm at something of a standstill on the cargo rack - mostly because I
still haven't bought a bender or bothered to noodle out a front support solution that I really, truly, genuinely like - I figured that this was as good a time as any to crack into the sleeping platform challenge. I stepped back and thought about it for awhile, and I realized that my idea of creating sleeping space by pushing a seat extra-far forward - i.e. the "slider-on-a-slider" Xzibit solution - really wasn't a terrible idea. I only need about 73" or 74" of space for a sleeping platform, and getting that much requires about 6" extra inches of seat travel; that seems like a lot, but with an auxiliary set of sliders it could be doable. So, the challenge was making that auxiliary set actually
fit; the only issue is that because of how the Toyota factory sliders are built, making a secondary set fit wasn't just going to be a direct bolt-in...
Pictured: ...except for the part where it was a direct bolt-in.
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Uh, yeah...about that...
So, that's an auxiliary set of sliders installed on top of the factory set; done and dusted. It's not really even that noticeable of a modification, unless you know what you're looking for...and in this case, you're looking for those little .250"/6mm-thick aluminum wafers right under the upper slider. In the end, that's all it took to install a functional, locking, mostly-low-profile secondary slider on top of the factory set on the driver's side.
(If anyone recalls: I was originally going to do this modification on the passenger side, but the factory slider mount spacing on that side is a different length than the aftermarket ones that I bought, and I bought those based upon the measurements of the driver's seat...so the entire plan got revamped in order to use the parts I already had.) And that's it: we're all buttoned up and finished, right there, with nothing more than four small pieces of aluminum and four bolts...except for the fact that literally none of this actually
works.
Le sigh; of course it wouldn't be that easy...
The upcoming pictures will add more clarity to the reason that these spacers had to be used in the first place, but for now, take it on faith that the top of the factory latching mechanism interfered with the bottom of the auxiliary slider being directly installed onto the top of the now-on-the-bottom factory ones, so I had to add a spacer between the two in order to make the two separate slider pairs bolt together...and holy f*%$, that was a complicated description. Hopefully it made sense; if it didn't, just keep reading...or just go look at your seat sliders. Actually, yeah, do that first; all of this text will still be here when you get back.
To continue: initially, I was very reluctant to add a spacer between the upper and lower slider sets because I didn't want to add
any extraneous thickness to the height of the entire seat-base assembly; said assembly was already going to end up being at least .750"/19mm taller due to the auxiliary slider mechanism being added, and my normal driving-position-height was already being altered significantly. My specific concern was that I would end up sitting too high in the seat in relation to the wheel if I kept adding spacers and sliders and who-knows-what-else, but after thinking about the issue for far too long, I finally decided that I was simply going to have to accept a height increase in order to make Slider-On-A-Slider work. I also decided that I wasn't going to make much headway on this project without creating a cheap proof of concept, and that's why I eventually just hacked a set of spacers out of a piece of scrap 6061 and bolted things into place, whereupon I immediately learned Three Very Important Things:
- Increasing the height of the entire seat-base assembly can easily be offset by reducing the suspension mechanism spring pressure by about 10 or 15 kilos; this allows the seat to sink a bit lower under the weight of the driver, and actually makes the entire seat a LOT more comfortable. The suspension mechanism moves a bit more at the reduced weight, but my overall driving position is effectively unchanged: win-win.
- Simply adding a seat slider directly on top of the factory slider didn't give me the forward travel that I desired; the auxiliary slider gained me three inches of travel both forwards and backwards, but what I actually needed was an extra six inches of travel in the forward direction only...so I needed to offset the auxiliary sliders artificially rearwards, which basically set their normal/zero point as the rearmost extent of their travel. Thus, I leave them at this "zero" and use the factory slider for normal seat adjustment, and then flip the auxiliary lever to create a 6" movement forward; paired with the 4" that the factory slider give me, this creates a total of just over 10" of possible forward travel...and that makes a rear sleeping platform just barely possible.
- Decoupling the factory sliders from the seat frame and/or base and then adding a secondary plane of travel creates a perfect recipe for jams, binding, and overall non-function, so this entire plan is actually made of pure garbage.
So, that last point might not be exactly clear. Here's a breakdown of the situation, in detail:
Toyota was
smart when they designed the factory sliders; they are a disparate, paired unit that uses both the seat frame and the seat base as the slaving mechanism that couples the upper and lower tracks of each slider together, side-to-side. This saves weight, reduces complexity, and allows a single locking mechanism to control both inner and outer slider positions while also ensuring a small degree of fitment adjustability between the seat base and frame...but this little bit of brilliance also means that the sliders are no longer fully slaved together if either the seat base or the seat frame is removed. At that point, one portion or another of either slider can move independently of the other,
because there's no structure between the upper and lower travel planes of the factory sliders aside from the seat frame and the seat base. I'll state this again, because it was the part that was the hardest for me to get my tiny little mind to recognize:
the seat frame and seat base are the horizontal structures that couple the factory slider tracks together, side-to-side. Thus, when I added the secondary/auxiliary set of sliders on top of the factory set, I accidentally caused a permanent
decoupling of one portion of each slider, relative to the other; specifically, I decoupled the mating surface between the lower track of the upper slider and the upper track of the lower slider. This created a floating, uncontrolled pairing of tracks which could move independently of any other function; technically, this happened on both the inner set and outer set, but since the factory locking mechanism still interfaced with both outer sets, there was always a control point between the upper and lower track of the factory slider on that side. However, as stated: that mechanism doesn't exist on the inner side of the factory set...so even though the auxiliary slider has its own locking mechanism on both sliders,
the factory inner slider was still floating...so when the seat was moved through its range of travel, the factory inner slider had a habit of moving independently of the outer, taking the lower track of the upper/auxiliary slider with it, and then jamming at one extent of travel or the other. Also, because of how I mounted the auxiliary sliders in my proof-of-concept build with the aluminum spacers, the control handle for that pair's locking mechanism had a persistent habit of flying loose when the inner slider moved out of alignment...because of course it did.
Okay...that was a long, unclear paragraph; if you're still reading and you want to better understand this issue, go take one of your seats loose and look at how the upper part of the inboard slider can move around wherever it likes once that upper plane of control is removed. It can do this regardless of the latched position of the outer slider. Now; imagine that movement compounding via a second iteration of the same being added into the mix;
that stupidity is what I accidentally created, and it's why the slider-decoupling-and-jamming problem - and thus the entire secondary-slider project as a whole - is actually pretty
easy to solve: all that's needed is a bracket that couples everything back together, both vertically and horizontally. Once that bracket is in place, the factory slider latch can control its slaved inboard unit and the upper sliders can function in any orientation without jamming (or without the handle flying loose) and everything works as intended.
Unfortunately, that bracket is not very easy to build...because of course it isn't.
Way back in the Before Time, someone suggested that I use a couple of pieces of flat stock to make an offset bracket to solve the seat-travel issue; this wouldn't have fully worked for me - the travel extents would have just been shifted, but not actually increased - but it was a solid suggestion and it gave me the idea to start with flat stock for the bracket that I eventually realized I needed to build...and that would have led to a very
simple build, had I not decided that I wanted to use angled stock instead of flat stock, because of 1) extra strength, and 2) reasons. The use of angled stock complicated things immeasurably, because even though angled stock is pretty easy to find, do you know what
isn't easy to find? Angled stock that's 1.500" x .625", which is exactly 38 by 16 metric mini-feet for those of you elsewhere on this rock. It's a weird dimension, but that's the size I needed said stock to be in order to fit into the stupidly-tight confines of the factory seat/base/slider assembly without hitting anything. And that's how I ended up creating this weird little cutting jig...
Pictured: Much like the rest of this rig, it'll work until it doesn't.
View attachment 3712374
...whereupon I realized that holding said guide in place was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. You see, not only do I have a welder, but I kind of know how to use it.
Pictured: Which is a phrase that here means "I don't know how to use it at all, but nothing I've made has broken. Yet."
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Tacking that cutting guide in place was probably the only smart thing I did on this build. Normally, I would have then tried to get an action-shot of a grinder cutting things apart: if there's anything we've learned from Project Binky, it's that grinders and brackets and showers of sparks solve literally everything...but I didn't feel like sectioning a part of my body accidentally, so there are no action shots. Instead, you get a portrait-mode end-profile shot that shows what happens when I forget that I'm supposed to be making dinner and instead just keep playing with a hand file.
Pictured: Too bad I have to weld over some of those curves, soon.
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So, why was all of that ripping necessary? Well, it wasn't...except for the fact that this piece of steel mounts angle-
down, and it wraps around the rather obtrusive factory control latch mounting bracket that caused all of this headache in the first place.
Pictured: Shown here, obscured by Kirby-flavored washi tape.
View attachment 3712382
Okay, remember when I said that I was using angled stock for extra strength and reasons? I wasn't kidding: that pink, taped-over triangle is the reason. As stated, that's the mount for the locking mechanism and it's the entire reason that a spacer of some sort is necessary: the auxiliary slider has to mount
directly over the top of this piece...but it also can't occupy that triangular area while doing so. The simple solution would be to two-piece this side of the bracket and avoid cutting around the mount entirely...and if I wasn't also making this an
offset bracket for the sliders, I might have been able to get away with that simplicity. However, since I do want to offset the upper slider approximately 3" in order to make the seat move an extra 6" forward, I wanted a full and uninterrupted piece of steel holding everything together on this side of things. A piece of flat stock being cut around this triangular projection would have been seriously compromised unless it was so wide as to introduce other issues elsewhere...so that's why I line-ripped steel into such a strange dimension, and that's why I then patterned it (pink tape) and took way too long cutting and fitting it.
Pictured: But the result was pretty damned good.
View attachment 3712398
I actually did a bit more filing and filleting after I that piece was fitted into place, but I didn't photograph it; regardless, the end result was a piece of steel that was of a decent size and the appropriate thickness which not only fit around the offending metal triangle, but which is also strong enough to not be compromised in the event of a collision or rollover. In that regard, .250"/6mm steel is WAY overkill for this - I mean, look at the thickness of the factory parts - but since I needed a .250"/6mm spacer to clear the factory latch mounting bracket, this was the easiest way to create it; going thinner would have been possible, but I'd have needed spacers or something else that would have added needless complexity...and I already had .250"/6mm angle in stock, so that's what was used. Here's the full-length shot:
Pictured: Starting make sense, yet? No? Good.
View attachment 3712400
I did this outer piece first because it was the hardest; that triangular cutout was a pain, and I knew as much going into it. The inner piece should have been quite a bit easier, but when I rough-cut it and brought it over to check the basic fit and clearance, I found a rather interesting surprise.
Pictured: "Missed it by *that* much..."
View attachment 3712410
Yes: that is the lower end of the seat-return spring bracket. Also, no: it cannot simply be bent out of the way...and I know that because I tried. There's just not enough clearance or material strength to re-contour that bend without possibly bending or breaking something else that's adjacent. In full disclosure: I knew this piece could likely be an issue, and I thought I accounted for it, but evidently I missed a measurement somewhere along the way and as a result I didn't realize that my custom-dimensioned angled stock was still going to interfere with it...and I'm pretty sure that's where I stopped for the night. That means this is probably a good point at which to end a very complicated post...and that is a phrase that here means immediately go back through everything I just wrote in a vain effort to edit it for clarity and errors, because it would be hard to explain all of this more poorly than I've done."
Ugh, the things I do to avoid setting up a tent...
To be continued.
